Preferably where no one can--see ya, hear ya or smell ya...
Do one thing everyday...that makes you happy...
Oh yeah, I made the mistake of going right after the rush of NOBO headint to Maine. Smelling ripe is an understatement. It gets pretty bad at Russell Field that I have just decided to fix dinner and hike on down to Townsend rather than spend the night and smell it.
Capt. Chaos
Col. John "CaptChaos" Knight
Bowling Green, KY USA
I am so glad to hear this story. I'm not so stupid after all.
About 11 years ago I made my first attempt to backpack and I hiked all day trying to get to Spence Field.
I got there late. Fixed Dinner and did a quick look around and then went to bed. Of course in the middle of the night I got the call of nature and I just could not wait until daylight.
I remember getting up and realizing that I was the only person at the shelter. Being ready to do it all I had my handy shovel and I headed out. I remember looking at a sign on the shelter and it talked about a privy but as I looked around I did not see one. I am thinking to myself that someone is having a good laugh by putting a sign on the shelter so I head off into the woods.
Needless to say, I finally figured it out and considered myself a true and tried backpacker since I did it "in the woods".
The next morning as I was fixing by bkft I noticed the sun reflecting off of something to the right of the shelter. Upon checking on what it might be I run into a privy. The joke was on me and I felt rather stupid for not realizing that Spence Field did have a privy.
I had laid there of what seem hours trying to keep it all in since it was cold and then I had to make the dash into the woods to try and figure out how you do it. Guess being a city boy it took some planning and thought. I always remember the joke the three things that John Wayne always said, Don't french kiss a rattlesnake, don't pee into the wind and try to remember to get everything out of the way before tying to hit the cat hole.
Capt. Chaos
Col. John "CaptChaos" Knight
Bowling Green, KY USA
WINTER ALERT!Originally Posted by Mrpokey
I know the is a book titled How to **** in the woods, but being young I can't afford it. My local libraries have it, but its usually checked out. So what is the proper way to go in the woods? How much toilet paper should be brought for a week in the woods, on average? Would it be better to use leaves and burn or bury them?Anyone have any tips, tricks, advice?
This important information came out of my last backpacking trip report and concerns the not-so-elusive turtlehead:
THE VIOLENT TURTLEHEAD
So wouldn't you know it but the first order of business after setting up the tent was to go off the ridge a bit and scrape out a hole to homebirth an angry and violent turtlehead. The newborn came in at 6.8 pounds, fiesty with a fully functioning arm and hand as it reached out and tripped me up as I was walking away. And I heard a muffled chortle right before I fell.
The normal non-Inuit turtlehead hates winter backpacking and the backpackers who do it, because said turds regularly go from 100 degrees to zero(atop snow no less), in about one nano(nanal?)second--they hardly have time to survey their new kingdom before they are frozen solid. A completely frozen turtlehead though still lives and woe be the idiot who picks up what seems to be a hard, solid woodlike object only later to find it to be, when thawed, a steaming, angry and pissed off human turd.
It's not a reptile, a frisbee or a polished chunk of knotwood, it's a now breathing, pulsating, unburied turtlehead, the worst kind. If discovered, drop immeditately and call no one. Never shove soiled hands down into pants as the smell of a foreign turtlehead will elicit your own contained turtlehead to emerge from hiding to investigae in fighting form and possibly wanting intimate congress or abrutly posturing itself in a fight or flight response. If you have an alpha turtlehead buried in your shorts, be prepared for an all-out fight to the death.
On the other hand, the flight reponse will drive your own turtlehead deeper and higher into your body, possibly up into your chest cavity or throat. Good luck. All this can be avoided by not backpacking in the winter, and if you do pick up a frozen turtlehead by mistake, don't be around when it thaws.
Go read the book.
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go, and look behind the Ranges. Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you . . . Go!" (Rudyard Kipling)
From SunnyWalker, SOBO CDT hiker starting June 2014.
Please visit: SunnyWalker.Net
Don't forget to log the lat and lon to a geocache website.
On the other hand, if you're feeling kind of lonely, a sure way to meet someone is to drop your pants near the trail. I guarantee someone will be walking up the trail behind you.
If you want something really different--try standing on your head---
involves extra paperwork however!!!
God forbid anyone ever brings a new face to an old classic by doing the flaming Bag O' Crap trick on the trail!
I bet you would be real popular at the shelter campfire when you walk up and throw used TP in will everyone is sitting around.
Just please bury it! I was in the Catskills once with a small group and someone went off to do their business. They came back into camp and they smelled really bad! After awhile he(not me) looked down at their feet and realized they had ***** smeared up both calves, Not his!
I realize a lot of people don't want to pack out their feces, although it's pretty easy and sanitary to do so. But as for TP, it is not hard to pack out (ziplock bags work fine, either large ones doubled or use several small ones in a large one). The problem is that many catholes get rifled by small animals (who find huge food value in feces) and the paper ends up on the ground. One wonderful campsite on the Bruce Trail about 10 miles south of Tobermory was closed due to this problem, and you can see similar results in many crap fields by shelters or heavily used campsites on popular trails.
Pack it in, pack it out. If you don't like packing it out, don't go.
TW
"Thank God! there is always a Land of Beyond, For us who are true to the trail..." --- Robert Service
I try to avoid using toilet paper, but I often still bring it. That way I can crap just about anywhere without so much fuss. Of course it depends, on traffic, and habitat, but its easier without toilet paper. Instead of toilet paper you can use leave, moss, bark, snow, sea water, whatever, depending on where you are at the time. I really don't think a book was needed on the subject, but it would be a nice book for the bathroom at home.
In our part of the country the newspaper is often delivered in long, narrow plastic bags that are useful for picking up dog mess. I don't know why they would not work just as well for people. Reach into the bag, collect the "items" in question and make a knot just above the items. Turn the bag inside out, tie another knot. Repeat until you run out of bag. Should provide a tight, leak-proof bundle to pack out when necessary. Burning TP is an unecessary risk.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
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